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This week in Hollywood South: Beasts of the Southern Wild premiere

The cast and crew of the highly honored and anticipated Beasts of the Southern Wild, along with about 150 additional family, friends and fans, celebrated the New Orleans premiere of the locally shot film at the Joy Theater Monday night. If you haven’t read Ken Korman’s in-depth cover story about the movie, what have you been doing?!?!? But seriously, check it out here. Also in attendance at Monday's screening were Treme stars Lance E. Nichols (Larry) and Michiel Huisman (Sonny), and following the premiere the crowd headed over to La Trobe’s on Royal to celebrate the work of everyone involved.

The almost entirely local cast has been traveling the globe picking up awards, and there’s no doubt that we’ll be seeing them on the big screen in many more projects after this one. Dwight Henry, who stars as Wink, the father to Hushpuppy, our heroine, has already signed on for a role in Steve McQueen’s Twelve Years a Slave, which began filming in Vacherie this week and co-stars Brad Pitt, Paul Giamatti and Michael Fassbender.

Also in town this week, Matt Dillon, who will be shooting the movie Pawn Shop Chronicles in Baton Rouge spent Saturday night having dinner at Domenica. The action/comedy is about a group of guys in search of a missing wedding ring, and will also star Elijah Wood, Vincent D’Onofrio, Ashlee Simpson and Paul Walker, who just wrapped the filming of Hours here in New Orleans.

And the best piece of information seen on Facebook this week came from Feet First, with this awesome post:

Several years ago, after the storm, I remember an interview with Richard Simmons, who said that he was a little hurt that hardly anyone reached out to him to utilize his “national celebrity” influence in support of our rebuilding efforts, and I vowed to always give Mr. Simmons the respect he deserves. He’s a local boy whose flamboyance, creativity and empathy could only have been fostered in a city like ours.

Any celebrity sightings or stories you’d like to share? Email: hollie.woodsouth@gmail.com or Twitter: @HollieWoodsouth